Although bodies have been discovered over the last two years the killings have been on the rise with nine killed since the summer and foxes being reported dismembered for the first time.

Target: The killer has also been mutilating foxes (Image: Rex)

Rising said: “Either we’re getting to hear more about them because the word is spreading or we’ve seen an upsurge. The foxes I suspect are not a new thing – this person has probably been killing foxes for sometime but people don’t tend to report wildlife.”

Last week the killer struck again, chopping off the leg of five-year-old black and white moggy Louie.

Louie’s owner, mum-of-three Stacey Lambourne, 28, bought the kitten as a gift for her son Archie, nine, five years ago, and couldn’t believe it when the beloved moggie arrived home on January 19 with one of his legs chopped off.

She said: “I think he came home to let us know he needed help and to be safe. He came to say goodbye.

“It’s had a big impact on us all. Yesterday when I told the children what happened, the house was so quiet. Nobody wanted to talk.

“My son keeps asking people, even if he doesn’t know them, if they know who has killed his cat.”

Horrific: Louie was put down after having a leg chopped off

Louie was put down on January 21 after losing his battle and police have appealed for witnesses to come forward.

A Met spokesman said: “Police in Croydon are investigating a number of incidents relating to cat deaths in the area. We are currently working to establish the facts.”

Rising said that many of those who have made the gruesome discoveries have been disturbed by their findings.

She said: “People who find these body parts are shocked, it’s awful. For a lot of people cats are part of the family, they’re not just pets so when something like this happens it’s like they’ve lost a family member so to see something like this happen to a family member is enormously distressing.”

But it is hoped with their investigation and the help of animal rights group PETA, who are offering a £5,000 reward, police might be able to make an arrest.

Aside from stopping the killer PETA are concerned about the state of mind of someone who could be carrying out these apalling crimes.

PETA Associate Director Elisa Allen said: “A person capable of deliberately causing this kind of suffering to helpless animals demonstrates a very worrying psychological state and must be found.

“Because animals cannot report being abused and can do little to fight back, violent people sometimes use them as “practice” victims.”

PETA has previously highlighted the link between animal killers who go on to murder humans.

Luke Woodham, a student at Pearl High School in a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, stabbed his mother to death before opening fire on classmates with a hunting rifle, killing two girls and wounding seven other students.

He had earlier tortured and killed his pet dog Sparkle, which the boy described as his “first kill”.

And Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats and shot arrows at them through boxes in his youth.